


of which there were more than you

by radbees



Series: RoS AUs [2]
Category: Poptropica (Video Game), Room of Swords (Webcomic)
Genre: AKA, Alternate Universe - Video Game World, Don fucks up and now everyones on a different island, Gen, Video Game Mechanics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-10-05 19:03:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20493734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radbees/pseuds/radbees
Summary: Time Travel Island was never meant for a catastrophe like this.





	1. that finish line you started

Don doesn't mean for everything to go absolutely wrong.

Time travel has always been such a profoundly delicate thing, and he has the honor of being one of its founders. He does not want to be known as its blunder, too.

Poptropica never grants his wishes.

Because the cables will tangle and coil, the lights will flicker, the alarms will sound, and every electric current in the entire building will seize power and burst.

His hands will shake and his breath will quicken and he'll run but it'll be too late. Too late. Always too late. Time Travel island. Always too late, never once--

The time machine will open, and it will expel a brilliant light just before it crashes. It's not the only one, it never has been and neither has Don, but that's how it starts. That's likely how it ends, too.

The start of something new, one's own failure and the world's success.

A choice, God's witness and the Devil's advocate.

Bane of the world, Don Santiago and Time Travel island.


	2. silly me waiting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> they're going, going, and suddenly gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lov u ros discord 😎

Captain Iro is gone.

That's all they know, that's all they've known for the longest time.

He's lost, they say, he ran away, wasn't right in the head. Id've done the same in his shoes.

Gyrus doesn't believe any of them. Maybe that's not a good view to have, but he's never trusted the losers up at HQ, anyway, and he wasn't going to start now.

Not now, when the one person who's ever believed in him is stuck in his favorite place. Not now, when they're preparing for take off and he needs complete focus to recover what they've lost.

"You ready for this, kid?"

Gyrus nods, because he wasn't born ready, but he has made himself ready. Maybe just not for the right things, he soon finds out, but at the moment his instincts will prevail.

He won't stop. There's too much at risk, not enough to gain in order to lose. It won't be now that he realizes it, but soon enough. Soon. Soon.

Not now, when the ship begins to rattle abnormally and the lights stop on their own. Not now, when something horribly twisted beneath their feet behind to screech.

Not now, when there's a blinding light and a bang ringing in his ears.

But now, where there's an ad for a blueberry drink stuck on his forehead and a sharp voice cuts into the air and through his ear.

"Hey! You can't be there!"

And that is how he knows.

They say she cannot help.

She thinks this is preposterous, of course she can aid, she was the Queen's very own personal knight, wasn't she? It was quite literally her job to aid in any and all ways that she could. It's what the Queen would have wanted, she's sure of that much. That just isn't what the Council thinks.

"Go home, Victoria," they say, "the Queen will appear, we needn't your presence at the moment."

She won't.

Tori refuses to rest until her Queen is seen safe and at home. Why should she get to be at peace when their ruler could not? Who was she to be worth more than the woman who'd made her what she is today?

A dreaded month she'd been gone, and the Council did not seem to even care. They took no action, only smoothed their robes and eyed the Queen's dowry like candy. Monsters, the absolute lot of them were. Cowards. The entire situation was absolutely dreadful, and the Elders were hardly any better with their sneers and false assurances.

"Go home," their voices echo in her head, "there is nothing to be done."

No, it was decided. Tori couldn't give a shite what the Council thought. Tying her hair, packing her bags, and mounting her horse, she looks out at the brilliant horizon during the dusk of her departure. Watches the sun go down and disappear just like the Queen. _Her_ Queen.

She tightens her grip, and, with piling regrets and newly formed adrenaline, sets off into the light.

However, the light sends her back in a flurry of noise, and her vision is plunged into black night.

Even after the sun goes down on their quaint little island, they still pray to her.

Sylvia doesn't know why, barely understands their strange words and barely wants to, but she likes their company all the same. They wander in, wide eyed with trembling knees. They set down wonderful food at her favorite pillar, some place flowers in varying colors, and many even drop a funny tune before tearing up and making haste away.

It's been years, living this way. She rarely leaves the cave, and knows almost every part of it inside out. Doesn't need more, hell, doesn't even know if there is more, anyway, but Poptropica was tricky that way. It gave what it felt you needed and took what you really did.

So when the people with their shaky hands grasping torn paper bits of a wild, gray sea creature, pleading smiles, kind words, pretty flowers, and good food stop appearing, it is only natural that Sylvia does, too.

So begins a new but lively festivity. She doesn't know what this "Hall owen" is, but the tiny humans circling her talk of sweets and darkness, two things she knows well, and she thinks she'll like it here on this strange, funny place.

So, for now, it still feels like home.

She wonders how long it will stay that way.

Zomberry Island.

That's where the young police officer tells Gyrus he's at.

"A breakout," she says, "horrible, a tragedy, really. No one knows how it started, but everyone steers far away from these parts of the island, now."

"But why am I here? How do I get back? I can't stay here. I-I have an important mission!"

_"Because Iro's waiting,"_ he thinks, the desperation only just starting to settle, _"I can't keep him waiting. I can't stay here."_

The police officer shrugs, eyeing his bulky space suit looking only mildly surprised.

"You're really not from around here, are you, sir?"

He's not, that much must be obvious. He wants to ask another question, anything to get him any kind of answer, when she sighs.

"Well, kid, not sure what to tell you. That area over there-" points her flashlight towards a tunnel- "is all quarantined. You can ask the Chief anything else, but my shift's almost over."

And with that, the officer walks away, leaving Gyrus in the middle of the street with only one option and a settling doubt.

He can't really tell which one's the Chief.

There are two of them, a tall man yelling with the wrath of god infused within glaring up at the other with crossed arms. The tall one curses up a storm while the other watches almost comically calm with a raised brow. It'd be a funny sight if Gyrus wasn't eager to speak to one of them and already half panicked.

"You think you're all that, huh? I bet you've never had to walk into hell before! You ain't seen nothing yet, but once you do it'll be the death of you if we're lucky!" The tall one yelps in a frenzy, waving his arms and not bothered by the red of his face in the slightest. Gyrus doesn't know how to interrupt conversation in the slightest, but god he wishes he did.

"Josef," snarls the other, "you damn fool. I told you once and I'll say it again, they'll be no cowards on this force, and that's final."

The tall one rages, throwing his hat on the floor and storming away in a frenzy of gawking limbs and muttered words of hatred. Gyrus watches him go, and turns to the only one left. No Chief would abandon their position, and no officer would yell at their Chief, so surely this had to be him?

Here went nothing.

A notebook, flashlight, and flimsy badge.

Gyrus already had a mission of rockets, space suits, and the desire to find, but they put him on the front line of this strange and, frankly, terrifying world and he lets them. He's an idiot for doing so, because his hands aren't meant to hold this flashlight up to half dead faces, but upon a control panel heading into the once unknown.

He's always been really fucking bad at saying no.

Standing in front of the tunnel entrance is...jarring. Its wide entrance, trashed corners, and literal bus crashed into the front give off a vibe Gyrus is definitely not ready to check. None of his training has ever possible prepared him for this. Zombies, a missing person, quarantined communities, all shot straight out of a horror movie and into his already complicated life.

But a thought comes, then, sharp and clear. It whistles in Gyrus's head, and the guilt and resentment come racing past the zombies and darkness.

Iro was out there. And Gyrus was here, wasting time and chances and nerve all at the same time. He could be dying for all they knew, alone and lost in the empty space.

Wasn't he worth more than this? Hadn't he done the impossible long ago?

What the fuck even were a couple shitty zombies in comparison to the final frontier he'd crossed so many times before already?

Absolutely nothing.

It's his last thought before plunging into fervent disease and a myriad of never ending darkness with nothing but his own wit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> go stan greek mythology island bro,,

**Author's Note:**

> this one's 4 u ros discord


End file.
